In the related art, in the maintenance of image forming apparatuses, when an abnormality occurs in an image forming apparatus, the situation is conveyed to a serviceman via a telephone call from a user. Moreover, a serviceman visits an installation location and checks the situation.
Furthermore, recently, in order to further improve service characteristics, a method is adopted in which, when detecting an abnormality, the apparatus in an on-line state (a state of being connected to a communication line such as the internet) automatically transmits apparatus information and error information to a service center using the communication line. Furthermore, at the same time, by referring to apparatus information such as a machine type, a machine number, an occurrence time, an apparatus situation, an error message and using such information, service characteristics can be improved.
However, in a current market, a considerable number of apparatuses in off-line states (a state of not being connected to a communication line such as the internet) still exist. Furthermore, even if the apparatus is connected to a communication line such as the internet, from a security problem, there are many apparatuses that do not provide the apparatus information (for convenience, an apparatus of such a state is referred to as a “apparatus in an off-line state” hereinafter).
In an apparatus in an off-line state, there are methods of storing the data of the apparatus information of an image forming apparatus in a PC owned by a serviceman temporarily, taking the serviceman's PC back to the service station and performing analysis of the data using the server, or switching the PC to an on-line state after storing the data, connecting the PC to the server and performing analysis at once.
In the maintenance of the image forming apparatuses of the related art, a serviceman is able to alter the settings of the apparatus from the state at the time of factory shipment according to the use frequency and the application of the apparatus. The settings of the apparatus are, for example, setting items concerning the behavior of the image forming apparatus such as adjustment of a scan position, paper margin adjustment, and motor speed adjustment. At this time, in some cases, an item is erroneously set to an unintentional value or an uncommon value. Since any value is reflected as setting, the value itself cannot be referred to as an error, and it is difficult for the person in question to notice.
However, depending on the combination of the setting values, by continuing in such a state, the apparatus may potentially cause an error as a result. In order to prevent such a situation in advance, it is effective to show a user how uncommon the setting values of the apparatus are. In the system of the related art, malfunction of an image forming apparatus can be diagnosed, but it is hard to detect whether or not the setting values deviate from common settings. It is difficult to detect whether or not the setting values of various information processing devices deviate from the general setting without being limited to the image forming apparatus mentioned above.